Michael Gracie 

A year and a few months after dumping my Blackberry for a Nokia flip, I’ve turned back to the dark side. Part of the reason was simply needing email in my pocket again – I’ve got several projects going on right now and I’m feeling the heat every time I step away from the desk for more than five minutes. Also, RIM finally released a desktop manager for OS X, so I knew I could keep things in sync (or at least have someone to complain to about it).

After two days I’m impressed. The Curve 8900 connects to the neighbors’ wifi, so I can carry on with my surreptitious mobile activities, anonymously, and the interface has the clean and easy feel I became accustomed to last go-round. I was, however, surprised to find so many available applications that are actually useful. While Skype chat is still missing, I’ve been able to dig up an RSS reader, various IM clients, and of course the usual…apps for Twitter and Facebook.

Yep, I’m impressed. And while this post is not particularly impressive in its own right, I did type and publish the whole thing with Wordpress for Blackberry. What will they think of next?

MG signing off (to walk the dog, fully connected)

As of January 22nd, I had not caught a trout in the year 2010. It was not for lack of trying.

On January 1st I hit Cheesman Canyon. And despite decent weather and plenty of spottings I went home empty handed. Last weekend I could be found tromping around the Blue River. The temperature was bitter, but the fish were plentiful. From Spectator Bridge a buddy watched me bop resident pigs in the nose, time and time again. Not a single take. That makes two skunks.

Yesterday was different.

A wildly popular section of the South Platte River was the target. When we arrived arrived there were a half dozen cars per lot, and anglers in every imaginable hole. This particular section has never been an MG favorite, and the reason is abundantly clear: crowds, even in the dead of winter. The fish have seen every pattern a million times. Even the yearlings shift feeding lanes when they see beadheads coming their way.

They (and I’ll note that “they” seem to be omniscient, whomever “they” are) say that bad luck come in threes. “They” probably don’t know me, but I love pushing my luck. To the nth degree, just in case I get a chance to give bad luck the middle finger (back luck deserves it now and then). So on my third trout-ing this year, after two previous pummelings, I not only picked a spot I didn’t care for, but also a start time (in the water by 11:30am) that guaranteed a mob.

And then came the three. Two bad decisions deserves another – the weather service predicted decent wind for the afternoon, so I threw caution to it and carried a three-weight. Not just any three-weight, however, but a Sage 389-3 LL three-weight. I now call it my fly-fishing middle finger.

For those just joining, the Sage 389-3 LL is kind of like the Ferrari 250 GTO of fly rods. It’s precise, beautiful, and has won accolades far and wide. It’s nowhere near as quick as today’s fast-action drivetrains, but it sure is fun to take for a spin. I figured if the odds were already against me I had nothing to lose.

The end result: it was cold, moderately gloomy, crowded, and the midge hatch that appeared about an hour in lasted all of minutes. The breeze blew, not strong, but non-stop.

And I caught more than my fair share of fish. Plenty of littlies, and only a few of chunk. But no more skunk. Three becomes the charm.

MG signing off (to give bad luck the middle finger every chance I get)

You cast. You catch. You land. You smile.

You color. You lobby. You lose. And you still smile.

This afternoon I checked the mail, and smiled yet again.

A pile of schwag compliments of the folks at FishyKid.org.

Included in the consolation package was a piece of Buff headwear, a Moffitt Angling System, a copy of Rivers of a Lost Coast, and a bunch of sweet stickers. All I can say is…thanks Cameron and Kevin.

MG signing off (to brush up on my coloring skills for the next contest)

At approximately 11:30pm yesterday, after struggling with database queries for most of the evening, I poured a lightly dressed cocktail. The vise was mounted, and I attempted to tie a carp pattern I’ve been thinking about. The vision was a small crawfish, lacking color, much as I’ve seen darting about in certain environs.

Using a size 6 Gamakatsu SL45 hook, I piled on some artificial everything, then sat back with drink in hand gazing at my creation.

It was not what I had planned.

While the tint and general size was precisely as imagined, the fly appeared anorexic. I need to figure out a way to make it much fuller. Maybe more material, or different materials altogether. And the final wraps near the eye are downright awful. I could blame it on the alcohol, but that was only two fingers and some ice – it’s my own digits that must take the heat.

I’ve tied ten flies in the last half-decade, and most of those were San Juan Worms, but I’m not going easy on myself. I need practice, lots of practice. And a few suggestions wouldn’t hurt either.

This fly goes straight into the bonefish box – no surprise because it is on a bonefish hook, but sad considering that particular box is in sore need of use.

MG signing off (to rethink, while panhandling for ideas)

It’s winter (and how’s that for stating the obvious?). For some that means peering out the window to cold, dark skies, maybe doing a little gear maintenance, and in the off chance you do hit the water, getting brutally skunked.

Fly shop proprietors, like those at Denver’s venerable Discount Fishing Tackle, do things like tear their retail floor plans to smithereens:

More than a few customers suggested they stopped the project cold, as the place presently has a cleaner feel to it than it’s had in five years.

Those who retired from fly tying because they were too busy with work…frustrated with wrapping hackle around microscopic Tiemco 101s…really only capable of tying clouser minnows to begin with take the Brett Favre approach:

The author readily admits that a Dyna-King Professional was probably going a bit overboard, especially since the last fancy vise he owned was smashed on the kitchenette floor of a room at Abe’s after the size 26 hooks he was mass producing adult midges with kept slipping out of the jaws. But then again this IS fly fishing related stuff we’re talking about here.

What do you do to pass the time during winter?

MG signing off (to bloody my fingertips on some tiny hooks)

Editor’s note: surfing pornography websites day in and day out DOES NOT qualify as passing the time, and for some may substitute for fly-fishing during most other seasons anyway.

In the simplest terms, you present the fly and the fish takes it. Drill down however, and things are not quite so easily defined.

The fish gets hooked, and subsequently gives up significant amounts of energy trying to break free. Sometimes it does, taking a tiny piece of your spirit along with.

Other times you land the fish, and take in its beauty. Then you release it, at once giving the fish back its life and giving the ecosystem surrounding it a chance at a better one. Meanwhile, the fish and that ecosystem have given you something too. A racing heart. A sense of accomplishment. A moment of bliss.

Even if the fish finds a way to escape, it has still provided you with something. A lesson learned.

From the long-term perspective, everyone has their days…what seem like eternally memorable outings. Sometimes it is entire seasons. Even years. Nonetheless, we constantly yearn for more.

Are you taking away, or giving your all? Wantonly? Relentlessly? Generously? Unexpectedly?

I do not have the answers myself. We’d all like to think that when we’re standing on the bank we’re at one with our surroundings, but we might be fooling ourselves. How do you measure such symbiosis, when for each success there’s a failure waiting right around the next corner? And visa versa. The magic, consistently balancing the opposing forces, seems almost out of reach when you consider the next tick of the clock. How will you know if you achieved that harmony until you see the final weigh-in?

My guess is all you can do is hope. And keep fiddling with the scale.

MG signing off (to take a careful look around)

Editor’s note: There is one certainty: if you make that cast and a tree branch takes that fly, you are taking a trip to the fly shop, and giving someone your cash.

Not too long ago there was a Wordpress exploit running around – the gist was someone was doing brute force attacks on login pages using the default administrator account. The problem, generalized, is that the default administrator account within Wordpress is set to “admin” and cannot be changed – all a hacker has to do is use that known username, and then fire password combinations in until one hits the mark.

This is a very easy problem to solve.

Access your Wordpress installation’s database – you can do this with phpMyAdmin (which most hosting environments have nowadays), or any other MySQL administration tool that suits you. In the wp_users table you should see the “admin” account – it should be the first record in that table. The user_login and user_nicename fields in that table should contain the word “admin” – change it to something different (but the same for both fields), and save those changes. And…don’t touch the password field – it’s encoded, and any change you make to it will screw the pooch forever.

You can now log into your Wordpress installation using that new username, which will still maintain all administrator access rights. Hackers don’t know what it is, but they’ll still think it’s “admin”, making brute force password attempts relatively futile.

MG signing off (to change my default administrator username, since “loudmouthdouchebag” doesn’t work for me anymore)

Yesterday I took a run down to the South Platte River, just south of the Denver city limits. My good friend Jon Emert in tow, we were ostensibly seeking carp.

The South Platte River is considered a dirty place – people don’t expect to see fishermen there, particularly not fly-fishermen. Par for the course, we were repeatedly (and quite rudely) mocked by passing cyclists. Not just any cyclists, but seemingly die-hard professional racing types, at least according to appearance (denoted by their carbon fiber bikes, sponsor-laden jerseys, and Christmas dinner flab hanging over their ballet tights). If those loft-dwelling, latte-sipping, bluetooth-toting, faux-environmentalists only knew. Actually, some of us would rather they didn’t.

We spotted just two carp all afternoon. Yearlings, maybe ten inches each, scooting across the skinny water. Could the Water Quality Control Commission, who gracefully denied a petition to keep the cold water designation on this section of river, be right?

Unfortunately, there are now at least two [more] anglers that know for certain they’re absolutely wrong. The brown trout pictured here was caught January 10, 2010, on the urban section of the South Platte River, by Mr. Emert. Brown trout are unquestionably a cold water species. This particular brown trout was colorful, muscular, and completely un-scarred. Its fins were wholly intact, unlike the fish you occasionally see who have to fight hard for their meals. It seems clear to us that it had found a way to adapt to its surroundings (foul-mouthed cyclists notwithstanding), and with vigor.

The fish spent a minute or so in and out of the water, while we carefully removed the Rainey’s Carp Teaser it had engulfed deep and snapped a few photos. Not a drop of blood was shed, and upon release it shot back into the pool from whence it came like nothing had ever happened.

Maybe the DOW snuck in while we weren’t looking and stocked the river with a supply of five year old brown trout. But…I doubt it.

Cesspool worthy of nothing but warm-water scavengers? Blech.

Cathy Beck denied this was the case, and said she’s just getting set up. It wouldn’t be the first time, as you’ll soon find out.

I had a chance to sit down with Barry and Cathy Beck, the first couple of fly-fishing, at the Denver International Sportsmen’s Expo. They’ve been in the fly-fishing business their whole adult lives, running a fly shop, hosting guided trips throughout the world, and capturing images that are found in publications galore. They need little more in the way of introduction, so we’ll get down to the nitty gritty.

Transcript follows…

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Ask any of my fishing friends what my favorite fly is and they’ll tell you it’s undoubtedly the Sex Dungeon. Who wouldn’t love a fly with a name like that? What a lot of people still don’t get though…trout love ‘em too. Particularly big trout. I’m also known for taking plenty of skunkings, but that’s because most of my casts wind up catching my hat. The inventor of the Sex Dungeon doesn’t have this problem – he’s Kelly Galloup, lifelong fly-fisherman, guide, and proprietor of the Slide Inn on the edges of the Madison River in Cameron, Montana.

Mr. Galloup is well known in fly-fishing circles for his what could be considered unorthodox techniques – huge, articulated flies with tandem hooks, and the use of fast sinking lines in moving water – but he’s probably best known for the “jerk-strip”, whereby the fly is retrieved by jerking the tip of the rod, and line drawn up as the rod tip is moved back towards the fly. The jerk-strip, along with all the rest of Kelly’s heavily researched methodologies, were first described in his 1999 book Modern Streamers for Trophy Trout.

I was walking through the International Sportmen’s Expo right after the show opened, and Kelly decided he’d put me in a headlock (former martial arts practitioner that he is) and drag me over to the loudest part of the convention center available to share his philosophy on fly-fishing as well as spill the beans on the new Scientific Anglers Kelly Galloup Streamer Express and his soon to be released book Modern Streamers 2. What I learned from the thirty-seven minutes to follow was that Kelly Galloup is without question one of the most enthusiastic, open-minded, and downright salt-of-the-earth people participating in the sport of fly-fishing today.

I could have spent the next couple of days hashing out the substance of the interview, parsing the question and answer “guts” of our talk, but the whole bit was just too damn good (and a hell of a lot of fun). Hence, it’s being published here as a first ever podcast. Enjoy.

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I’ll add that after we turned off the microphone, Kelly was still talking fishing, and we continued on for at least another ten minutes until I realized I was way late for the next call. I wish I could have stayed.

Kelly Galloup will be at the International Sportsmen’s Expo, Denver, through Sunday, and will continue on to some of the other shows throughout the country. Check the schedule for his appearances here.

And by the way, thanks Kelly! It was as real as it gets.

Editor’s note: Approximately fifteen seconds of the audio doesn’t exactly relate to fly-fishing, but it was about 15F outside; hence we were subconsciously wishing we were sitting on a beach drinking beers. Or at least that’s the best excuse I could come up with.